


Do We Not Bleed

by MlleMusketeer



Series: The Quality of Mercy [1]
Category: Transformers: Prime
Genre: Accidental Non-Con, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Medical Experimentation, Medical Horror, Plug and Play Sex, Slavery, Tactile, Xeno
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-05
Updated: 2013-07-07
Packaged: 2017-12-16 16:47:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/864307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MlleMusketeer/pseuds/MlleMusketeer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Season 2 AU. Optimus's reluctance to take human life puts him in the hands of MECH and at Silas's mercy. And MECH has found a different way to obtain a robotic super-soldier, one from the darkest side of Cybertron's Golden Age. One which horrifies even Megatron.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Firstly, I'm serious about those tags: this is a very nasty little story indeed. Even if the bulk of the nastiness stems from human ignorance...

You had to admit it, that alien tech was tough.

Silas looked down at the remains of the bot. It was still twitching, but feebly now. Any organic creature would have been long dead, but they'd managed to get everything they'd needed--more, actually--from this and it was still going. No hint of rescue, either. No one missed grunts. 

The techs stepped over pools of whatever the things used for blood as they packed up their equipment. 

 "We done here?" 

 "Yes sir," said one of the techs, the computer guy. Silas could hear the grin in the kid's voice. "And there's something really weird with some of the code. We've managed to correlate everything else to specific functions, but this one..." The kid shrugged. "Not sure what it does, but it's everywhere, and the operator code tagged to it makes me think it's been inactive for a while..."

"Figure it out on the way," said Silas. He looked at the thing on the ground. A red slitted visor turned toward him, perhaps pleading. No way to tell, they'd taken what passed for its voice box out some hours ago. "And destroy this."

 

 ----

"So some humans blew up a tunnel in Canada," said Arcee. "How, exactly, does this involve us?"

"Agent Fowler thinks that MECH was responsible." Optimus looked around, face unreadable under the battlemask. The abandoned mine before them was obliterated, jagged chunks of pale rock jutting out of the loam, some deeply embedded in tree trunks. "Even if he is wrong, it would be better to ascertain that this is, indeed, the work of some other human organization."

"We can't interfere in every domestic issue the humans have," Arcee pointed out. "They're just that, domestic. Whatever group of humans decided to make a statement  by destroying a decrepit mine, I'm sure that Agent Fowler and his compatriots are much better equipped to deal with them."

"I hope you're right, Arcee," said Optimus, and started down the hill. 

They searched what there was--not much--turning over the pale rocks and splintered timbers. It was a long process, fruitless. But if it was MECH, whatever they had decided to so thoroughly destroy was worth the time.

"Optimus," said Arcee abruptly, frowning down at her scanner, "I'm reading energon. Close, but not that much--it's not enough to mine, but..."

"Where?" 

"Here, under these rocks-- Oh Primus." Arcee sounded horrified and sickened. Optimus crossed to the other side of the rubble, and stopped dead when he saw what lay under the piled rocks. 

Gray in death, the visor dark, the half-crushed helm of an Eradicon was just visible between two stones. Some distance away, a few fingers protruded, twisted and broken. 

Together, Optimus and Arcee shifted the debris aside until the rest of the Eradicon was visible.

"Definitely MECH," said Arcee. 

There were still restraints over the Eradicon's wrists, and though the better part of it had been destroyed in the explosion, it was clear that most of the damage was due to something else. Circuitry gleamed dully, and fresh metal showed around neat cuts through plating.

"Agent Fowler," said Optimus, "it appears that MECH was indeed responsible for this explosion." He glanced up as the clear sound of a helicopter rose above that of the wind. "Though there is no need for you to be here in person."

" _Optimus_ ," said Fowler, alarmed, " _that's not me. We've got fifteen--what was that? What do you mean, they're appearing and disappearing?--twenty bogeys closing on your position. Get out of there!"_

"Ratchet, I need a groundbridge." The first of the helicopters came in sight as the groundbridge opened. "Arcee, go." 

"I'm staying right here," she snapped.

"Go!" he said again, wondering if there was a way to bring down the helicopters without injuring the occupants. Arcee said nothing more, transforming with a clatter of plating. Optimus fired, clipping the rotor of the lead helicopter. It spun away, but the one behind it fired at the same time.

He ducked aside, realized it wasn't aimed at him. He downed that helicopter as well, hating the necessity, but he had to give Arcee enough cover. No explosion, good. He took a step back toward the groundbridge, glanced over his shoulder to see if Arcee had made it through.

Something hurtled past him, bounced as it hit, vanished into the groundbridge. He reached after it--

\--and it exploded, pushing him a step back, and the bridge collapsed in a roar of light and sound. Optimus turned. He might have to fight his way out. The damage to the groundbridge would be extensive.

There were far more than twenty helicopters. He hesitated, unwilling to make an escape at such a cost of life.

The next helicopter's shot took him full in the chest.


	2. Chapter 2

“Your friends won’t be coming to rescue you. We fired an EM pulse through your little teleporter. Should take a few days before they get it up and running again.”

Optimus shuttered his optics, tried to move and couldn’t. 

“So, Optimus Prime. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you in the flesh. Well, the equivalent.”

“Silas.”

“The very same.” Silas moved into his field of vision, hands clasped behind his back, smirking. “And I have some good news for you. Given the contributions of that last robot you found, we won’t have to dismantle you. You see, the prototypes we created from our previous guests were...less than functional. But we found a rather useful bit of code in the last one. It took our techs a couple days to figure out what it did, but when we did… well, it should be worth it. Especially since they figured out how to modify it.” He glanced at someone out of sight. “Is everything ready?”

“Yes sir,” said another voice. “We had to jury-rig that cable, but it shouldn’t cause any trouble with the file transfer.”

Optimus raised his head. His interface panel was open. He tried to close it, and with a jolt of horror found he could not. He was exposed to the gaze of all these alien eyes and helpless to do anything about it.

He looked back at Silas, glad of his battlemask, of the veneer of calm it gave him over the shocked humiliation. They did not know what they did, he reminded himself, forcing his ventilations to even out. 

“You see,” said Silas, “the last bot we bagged had a sequence of code that meant he couldn’t disobey the orders given to him by a specific person. Something to do with a voice imprint. Though it was inactive—well, Johnson here was a dropout from MIT’s computer science program, and not because he couldn’t hack the work. But that wouldn’t mean anything to you, would it.”

Optimus said nothing, his processor whirling with the implications. Slave coding.

He’d heard about it, but had dismissed it as a rumor, something Megatron had spread to give himself further credence among the gullible. Even if it had existed, surely the Council would have banned it, done something about it. 

They had to be mistaken. Cybertronian technology was very different from human. It would be ineffective. But a cold fear settled in the bottom of his spark, asking what would happen should it work. He was a weapon, and in the hands of MECH, the damage he could cause to human, Autobot, and Decepticon alike would be staggering. 

“And before you try to talk us out of this, reconsider. We’ve spent a significant quantity of money getting to this stage. We’re not going to stop now.”

“Cybertronian and human technology are minimally compatible at best. This is unlikely to work.” 

Silas picked up the edge of unease in his voice and smiled, a feral expression. “Well, you never know until you try.”

Something rattled overhead. Optimus looked up. A crane moved, the cable attached to it carefully guided by yet another suited figure. The top end of it, nearly hidden in the murk above, was frayed and pulled back so it could connect with a tangle of wires. 

_Primus, no, please, they cannot mean to—_

The Eradicon had been so badly mutilated that he had not even checked to see if any parts of it had been removed. He was now certain that its interface cable had been removed. 

“You desecrate the bodies of our dead as well as those of the living,” he said, hiding the disgusted horror. He wanted to flinch from the thing, knew he could not even do that. 

“Well,” said Silas, “I think that the robot in question was still quite alive when we removed it.”

The man guiding the cable scrambled up onto Optimus’s chest plating, keeping the cable steady. Optimus tried to close the panel again. Nothing. They must have disabled that circuitry. He cycled in an involuntary ventilation at the touch of the dead Eradicon’s cable on the edge of his port. The human guiding it stumbled, banging it against delicate sensors, and he tensed.

A small, binary noise of pain escaped him when they pushed it into him, and he offlined his optics, trying not to think about the dead cable in his port, as inert as that of a computer, the hideous violation, the agony of damaged sensors and dented plating. No sense of charge, just inert, dead, metal.

They did not know what they did, he told himself, and it did not help. 

The first tendrils of the code pressed into his processor, overrode firewalls as if they didn’t exist, unexpected and alien and then he did flinch. His ventilations grew ragged, the code creeping through him, warping things, twisting him, a sense of wrongness that made the pain negligible. His tanks rolled again and he shuddered, sending fresh waves of agony through his port, drawing a burst of static from him.

They did not know what they did, he reminded himself, and it did not help.

After an eternity, the pressure eased and he heard a voice. 

“They tell me you’ll need a voiceprint from me. Well. Welcome to MECH, soldier.”

Optimus said nothing, offlined his optics. There was nothing to be said. 

\---- 

_“—been missing for a week! How do I explain—”_

_“Any news, Agent Fowler?”_

_“None. He’s vanished into thin air.”_

Megatron snorted at that. “So they’ve misplaced Optimus, have they? How careless.”

Soundwave ignored his reaction, continuing to play the recordings he’d collected. 

_“What in the universe could MECH want with him?”_

_“That Eradicon—”_

_“No, I refuse to believe that.”_

Megatron grinned. “So the Autobots are leaderless?”

Soundwave raised a hand. _“Hey, Ratchet, care to explain why Optimus felt the need to trash a military facility in Montana this morning?”_

There was a pause. Megatron looked at Soundwave. Soundwave looked back a few moments, until he was certain he had his superior’s attention. 

The next message he played was filled with static, but the voice was still perfectly comprehensible. 

_“Yes, we’ve got him. The program works like a charm—he’s as tame as a kitten. About the latest operation—”_

The recording cut out. 

Soundwave cocked his head, inquiring. 

Megatron stood there, thinking. His claws curled slowly into a fist. “You think the humans have discovered slave coding,” he said after a long moment. 

Soundwave nodded. 

“You think they’ve used it on Optimus.”

Soundwave nodded again. 

Megatron turned around. “Arrange something to keep the Autobots busy. I will deal with the human problem.”

 ----

  It wasn’t that he had any particular outrage for Optimus’s sake. He would have been unconcerned had MECH merely inflicted the same sort of harm on Optimus as they had on Breakdown when the fool had blundered into their custody. No, it was because the humans had decided to use slave coding.

Of all the evils of Cybertron’s old regime, that had been the worst. He did not know how many of those under his command had carried such programs—he only knew of those he had scrubbed of the code personally. Early in his revolution, it had been an important skill—an enslaved mech always needed outside help to eradicate such a program, even in the absence of his or her master. Too many were afraid to even reveal that they carried it, frightened that they might find themselves once again enslaved. That some of them feared he would take such advantage of them still enraged Megatron. 

And the thought that some foolish, weak human might use it to control one of Cybertron’s people, seeking some petty foothold in the affairs of its inconsequential world, enraged him still more. Autobot or no, Prime or no, those humans would pay for what they had presumed to do. 

A pity they had no equivalent. 

He reached the flight deck of the _Nemesis_. The alien air tasted clean in his ventilators after the foulness of memory. No groundbridge for him today. He would find Optimus on his own. 

He leaped up, transforming as he went. Wherever the humans were, he would find them. 

Some hours later, deep in a cloud, Soundwave contacted him. An increase in human radio activity in a southern region of the world. Megatron angled himself upward and broke through into bright sun. He’d make better time this way.


	3. Chapter 3

The days became a blur. 

First, unwilling to release him in case the programming hadn’t taken, they questioned him, demanding information. 

He gave it, no choice in the matter. 

Then came the confidence. They let him up, commanded him to perform simple tasks. “Like a trained dog,” Silas said, satisfied. 

Some time after that, they used him on a mission.

Silas’s voice was always with him now, snarling from a human comm they  grafted to the outer part of his left audial receptor. The human didn’t seem to sleep. Day or night, the comm might spring to crackling life, Silas demanding anything from his presence on a mission to his assistance with some manual task the humans were incapable of performing on their own. 

The human soldiers treated him with a wary respect, calling him sir. The officers pretended indifference, as if he were no more than another piece of equipment. Still, they had made a point of effacing his Autobot insignia with chevrons of black paint clumsily applied to his upper arms.

There was little room within MECH’s base. Mostly, he found himself crouched in a warehouse or outside. He preferred the latter; the stars were visible there. 

He found himself thinking of Cybertron those nights, another world where the air was sharp and clear, free of the wet musk of an organic world, the clinging particles in his vents. He thought of the glitter of cities long destroyed, the feel of thousands upon thousands of EM fields, the sound of hundreds of voices, rising and blending in laughter, arguments, song, anger. 

Megatronus’s words rising above them, pledging freedom and prosperity. Megatronus himself, listening to him with an almost shy regard, enormous hands folded behind his back, optic ridges raised.  Megatronus’s claws, gentle around his own blunt fingers—love, yes, but a deep trust and admiration that mattered far more.

He did not allow himself to go further into those memories, because they led him back to the present and the ache in his port that refused to fade. He wondered what sort of damage had been done, and hoped that his self-repair could take care of it. There was no alternative. 

He wore his battlemask all the time now, a last measure of privacy. Silas had not yet ordered him to retract it, and so it stayed, a barrier against what they sought to turn him into. They wanted a monster. That much was clear from the missions he’d participated in. 

And then there was the constant poking and prodding. The ‘techs’, as the other humans referred to them, seemed constantly curious. He wondered why—surely the fate of that Eradicon had been enough to give them the needed information. Johnson, the one who had been in charge of the installation of the slave coding, was especially inquisitive, posing strange questions, mostly logic puzzles and the occasional philosophical query, then muttering excitedly about wanting to run a “Turing test”. 

Silas, still smirking, reassured Optimus that this was the extent of the tests, and he would not be dismantled as his predecessors had been—he was far more valuable fully functional. He had things he wished to say to that, but remained silent. During the first mission, he had managed to announce MECH’s intentions to the humans defending the base, allowing them to get the targeted equipment out before MECH could seize it, and prompting Silas to order him to remain silent unless asked a direct question or to warn Silas of an imminent threat. 

“Brilliant,” Johnson had said when Silas described the incident to him, ignoring Optimus’s presence entirely. “If it’s possible for a computer to actually gain sentience, he’s it.”

Silas snorted. “Don’t get soft on him,” he said, and glared up at Optimus, who pretended not to notice. 

After that, there were a lot more tests, probably Silas’s idea of a punishment that wouldn’t impair his functionality. Once Silas was sure the incident would not be repeated, he had no compunction in continuing to use Optimus to support his human soldiers. 

There had been no sign of rescue. Maybe even Ratchet couldn’t locate him—he had no idea what they had done to him while he was unconscious, but it was evidently enough to hide his location. It was a relief. Had they attempted a rescue, he was sure that Silas would have ordered him to destroy them, and he was not sure that they would be able to subdue him before he caused serious damage. 

His orders today were simple, protect a vehicle transporting explosives. Their attackers, men from Agent Fowler’s government, seemed to view him as a deterrent; as soon as he and the truck he escorted came into view, they withdrew to cover and ceased fire. It could mean that Fowler had called in the Autobots, but that wasn’t an imminent threat and so he elected not to mention it. At least he could do that much.

He kept an optic on them all the same, and when the sound of an engine made them look up and retreat, voices raised in alarm, he looked too. 

A familiar gray shape screamed down from the sky, directly at him. Imminent threat. “Megatron,” he said, raising his blaster and Silas’s response was lost as Megatron crashed into him mid-transformation, slamming him to the dirt. A knee ground into his chest plating, Megatron’s taunting laughter loud over the sound of human gunfire. He tried to struggle up again, and Megatron backhanded him hard enough his processor swam. “Stay down, you fool.”

“Destroy him. Now!” Silas sounded just as calm as ever and the unthinking compulsion seized Optimus’s limbs and he lurched sideways, unseating Megatron. Megatron came back to his feet with a snarl of irritation. One of MECH’s human soldiers fired an EM pulse at him, missed him. Megatron returned fire, striking the vehicle. 

The resultant explosion flattened both mechs. Optimus tried to struggle back upright, feedback singing through his audial receptors, and swiped at Megatron. Megatron blocked, looking more irritated than anything else. He struck again, a glancing blow. 

Megatron’s optics narrowed with satisfaction. He closed in, sweeping Optimus’s feet from under him and following him down. Optimus found himself pinned to the ground again, Megatron bracing his full weight against him. 

“If you always fought this poorly,” said Megatron, his attention to one side of Optimus’s helm, “this war would have been over eons ago.” He raised one blade.

Optimus wrenched against him, but Megatron was better seated this time. The blade stabbed down. 

Searing pain in his left audial, and then Megatron struck him again across the face. The world lurched. He struggled again, feebly. A flurry of blows, leaving him all but unconscious.

The weight lifted from his chest, and he heard Megatron’s voice snarling something, a crunch, and then he was lifted and slung over one spiked shoulder. Something glittered in the dirt, smeared with energon. He wasn't sure what.

Silas’s voice was silent.

 ----

Megatron pinched the tiny human device between two claws, not wishing to break it a moment too soon. “I will find you,” he told it. “There is no human deity that will shield you. I will find you and we shall see how many critical components a human may lose and yet live.” He crushed it before the human could respond, then looked down at Optimus. He’d throughly destroyed one audial, but that was what medics were for. 

Blue optics met his, full of confused anger, half-conscious. Megatron wondered a moment if he needed another blow to ensure that Optimus wouldn’t regain his senses before he had him adequately restrained, but decided against it and lifted him anyway. “Groundbridge,” he snapped into his comm, and Soundwave, reliable as ever, provided one immediately. 

Yet more engines. Here came the Autobots, all bright colors and idiocy. He made sure they saw him and his burden before he stepped into the groundbridge. Optimus struggled again, but a hard shake stopped that. 

He listened with amusement to their rapidly fading curses until the closing groundbridge cut them short. 


	4. Chapter 4

 

“If word of this gets out, it will be your head I come looking for.”

“Yes, Lord Megatron. I believe you already noted the importance of secrecy in this case.”

“Good. You should also note the sincerity of my sentiments on the subject.”

“I do. There, I’ve done what I can, without the medical bay itself. Are you sure you don’t want me to add your insignia?”

“Knockout.”

“Yes, my lord?”

“Leave.”

“Yes, my lord.” The door slid open, closed again. 

Optimus onlined his optics. He had a faint recollection of the groundbridge, something of being carried upside-down through what seemed like endless corridors, and a hazy pain. And quiet. He had to be somewhere aboard the Nemesis, and he was heavily restrained. Competently, too, as an experimental effort found. 

Megatron stood at a bank of computers. He made no acknowledgment of the commotion, his attention focused on something on the screens there. Optimus subsided and tried to reconstruct what had happened. 

There was no foreign sound from his left audial, no faint hum from the human device, no Silas. 

That was why Megatron had damaged that audial. He knew. Optimus’s optics settled on the  cables by Megatron’s feet, and his spark sank. Of course Megatron would take advantage of the situation. Silas had been one matter—MECH had very little idea of what they might do with any Cybertronian—but Megatron doubtless knew exactly how he might best use him. 

Primus, he should have been deactivated rather than allow this to happen. Ratchet, Bulkhead, Arcee, Bumblebee, the humans—Megatron would find the location of the base, and use Optimus to destroy it. And then what? The subjugation of Earth, the destruction of the remainders of the Autobots? He wrenched at the restraints. They held. 

He could not let this happen. Perhaps he might persuade Megatron of the folly of this, somehow. Or even negotiate a surrender that would preserve the lives of the Autobots and the humans, if it came to that. Megatron could be reasonable, if it suited him.

And he could not speak. Silas’s order still stood. All he could do was watch in silent despair as Megatron finished whatever he was doing by the computer and selected a cable. He tensed, ventilating raggedly. Not again. Not at Megatron’s hands. He glared defiance up at the other mech, knowing it to be useless. Megatron ignored it, reaching around to the back of his neck and the medical port there.

Optimus fought down a surge of selfish relief and turned his helm away, making it harder to access the port. Megatron simply put a clawed hand over his helm and held it still, oddly gentle as the cable clicked into position. Then he stepped back to the computers, retrieving an identical cable and doing the same to himself with it. The computers flashed to life with two lines of scrolling glyphs: code. The upper line had a repeating section highlighted in red; the lower had a corresponding, slightly different section in purple.

The uncomfortable, alien tugging of the code began again, and again he fought it, and again, it did little good. The compulsion surrounding Silas’s voice faded. He waited, dreading, for it to be replaced by one for Megatron’s. 

“Stop fighting, you fool,” snapped Megatron, after some time. “The human didn’t order you to retain it, did he?”

He could respond to that. “No,” he said. “But I will not let you take his place.”

Megatron turned to look at him, and the shock and rage in his optics was startling. He said nothing. One fist clenched, and he turned back to the computers, striking a sequence of keys with such force that the computer chirped in protest. 

“There,” he snarled, after a moment, and reached around to his back and disconnected the cable. He strode over to Optimus, decidedly less gentle in removing the  cable than he had been earlier. “It’s done.”

“What—” Optimus stopped mid-sentence, realizing exactly what Megatron had meant. “You removed it.”

“Not removed. Deactivated. Despite your expectations, it seems.” Optimus said nothing. Megatron leaned over him. “You thought that I would use it to my own ends?”

“I was incorrect.”

“Yes, you were, weren’t you. Makes your life a little more difficult that I’m not as ruthless as you would like to believe. Your precious Council condoned slave coding, did you know that? Do you know how many of the mechs on this ship we had to scrub of it?” Megatron put a hand on the edge of the table, his claws digging small curls of metal out of it. “Do not imply that I would use such a thing, Optimus _Prime_. It was your side that invented it.”

“How?” asked Optimus, and when Megatron looked at him, puzzled, added, “How did you deactivate the coding?”

“It needs a template,” said Megatron. “A deactivated code to replace the active. Why does it matter?”

For the first time since his capture, Optimus retracted his battlemask. He frowned at Megatron. “You used yourself as a template.”

“What of it?”

“You had slave coding.”

Megatron reached down and released the restraints. “Get out,” he said. “Soundwave will take you to the groundbridge.”

Optimus pushed himself up. “Megatron—” he started. 

“ _Out_.”

He decided not to press the matter, and went. 

-\---

Optimus did not recharge that night. Even with his disgust and revulsion at slave programming, Megatron still could have done a variety of things—a cortical psychic patch, imprisonment, simple deactivation—that would have given him a great advantage. And he had not.

All the explanations he could come up with seemed impractical. He knew better than to rely on Megatron’s sense of justice or honor. They were, after all, at war. Perhaps it was because he saw MECH as a greater threat than the Autobots. 

No, the idea of Megatron being concerned by humans was absurd. 

Optimus sat on his berth and frowned into the darkness. _It was your side that invented it._

A lie? Too easy to dismiss it as a lie. Megatron had carried slave coding; he’d seen it. It would explain much—his rage after the meeting with the Council, his insistence on violent revolution. Peaceful resolution still would have been possible, but slave coding, even long deactivated, would have made it difficult for Megatron to see that. It would make sense.

Was Megatron not so different than Megatronus after all?

On impulse, he sought out a long disused comm frequency, expecting it to be dead, and sent a simple query along it. And stiffened with shock when it was answered with familiar irritability. 

He sat there, human minutes crawling past, not sure what to do. 

If Megatron was not so different… 

Could the war end tonight? Unlikely. But maybe, a temporary truce…

_Meet me at these coordinates_ , he sent, a location far from human habitation, and closed the channel. 

 

 ----

“What do you want?” were the first words he heard as he came out of the groundbridge. Megatron had never been overly pleased to have his recharge interrupted. 

“To talk,” he replied. 

“To talk.” Megatron looked at him. “Indeed.”

“MECH is a threat to Autobot and Decepticon alike,” Optimus said, because it was easier than the other things he wanted to say. “Now they have the ability to install slave coding on any Cybertronian who falls into their hands, the necessity of stopping them is even more apparent.”

Megatron laughed. “So your own experiences have no part in this decision, Optimus?”

“It would be impossible for them not to,” said Optimus. “In both illuminating the nature of the threat MECH poses, and in my hope to form an alliance—however temporary—to confront it.”

“And why would I agree to such an alliance?”

“How many under your command have deactivated coding?” asked Optimus. 

There was a silence. 

“And after MECH is destroyed?” 

“We shall see.”

“Ah. So you do hope to extend the truce afterward. You could just surrender.”

“This is more important, regardless of the ultimate outcome.”

“And have you consulted with your own inferiors?”

“They have seen the damage that MECH is capable of doing. I am confident that they will agree with my assessment of the situation.”

“Hm.” Megatron looked thoughtful, then nodded. “Very well. Until the defeat of MECH. _Only_ until the defeat of MECH.”

“That is all I ask.” 

Another pause. 

“Is that all?”

“No.” Optimus shifted forward. Foolish. Sentimental. But somehow tonight, there seemed to be more Megatronus than Megatron.  There were too many memories from long ago, before that disastrous meeting with the Council. Nights of fiery speeches and dreaming and planning. He’d long thought that he’d loved an illusion, the face Megatron had found convenient to present to the world at large. The events of the last few cycles had firmly disabused him of that. 

And he wanted, needed, this. There were places where Ratchet’s brusque professionalism fell short, times where the only cure was companionship. He could not seek out the others for many reasons, not the least of which was that it would require telling them the specifics of what had happened and that, he did not want to do. He put out a hand and touched Megatron’s forearm, the one without the cannon and looked up at him. Words did not come.

Megatron looked down at the hand on his arm, then back to Optimus, and his face set, angry. “What do you mean by this?”

“I have missed you,” said Optimus. 

“So you think that’s what it was for?” snarled Megatron, stepping closer to him. “It had nothing to do with you, Optimus. Nothing. I do not want your gratitude. Even less—” he pushed the hand from his arm, “—for you to act like a pleasure drone because of it.”

Optimus looked up at him with collected irritation. “No. This has little to do with gratitude.”

“Then why now?” 

Optimus cycled his ventilators, hesitated. A moment of vulnerability, profound unhappiness. Megatron said nothing. 

“Because,” he said after a very long time, “You understand.”

Megatron just looked at him, scarred face thoughtful. 

“You understand,” Optimus said again, his voice louder. “And you are…” He wasn’t sure what Megatron was. Not a friend, not after all these eons. Someone he trusted with this. Someone he still did. 

A clawed hand took one of his, tentative. “You speak of this to me because it has been a long time, but you know me,” Megatron said after a moment. “And I know what has been done to you. Is that it, Optimus Prime?” And this time there was no mockery in the title. 

“It is.”

“And is this relapse, too, only until MECH is defeated?”

“We shall see,” said Optimus, relief rising in his spark, and he pressed closer to Megatron, the comfort of that great bulk. 

Megatron hesitated still. A hand closed over his shoulder, gentle. “You are sure of this?” he asked, and there was an edge that Optimus couldn’t quite place in it, one he had not heard since Cybertron and made his spark warm within him. 

He was sure of many things. That this was the most selfish thing he had done. That he was a fool for this. That if he had misjudged Megatron, his selfishness would doom those who trusted him.

And that he needed this. By this choice he might reclaim himself, render the memory of what had been done to him powerless, banish the painful ghost of the dead cable. “I am,” he said, vocalizer husking static. 

Megatron grinned. “Good,” he said, and his hand shifted, fingers pressing in between two strips of plating. Optimus ventilated sharply, catching at his other arm. 

“Oh, you still like that?” Megatron sounded more amused than anything. Optimus pulled him in close, searching for the places he remembered. A gentle touch in one place was enough to make Megatron arch, hissing. He turned his head and nibbled at a particularly sensitive bit of wiring in Megatron’s neck, and claws stung as they clenched over his shoulders. Megatron did something to the center of his back. His own interface panel began to open, then closed with a panicked flinch, the feeling of exposure too much to bear. Megatron didn’t seem to notice, and turned his attention elsewhere, plucking and probing and stroking. Optimus made himself relax into it, turn his attention to what he was doing, to the feeling of gentle claws and Megatron’s protective presence. Megatron tweaked something, and this time his interface panel slid aside without difficulty  as he ran his fingers along the edge of Megatron’s. 

It opened. He touched the tip of the cable, the edge of the port there, looked up when he realized that Megatron was no longer moving and found Megatron staring at him with something akin to alarm.  He glanced down at his own port, saw that the damage that MECH had inflicted was still apparent, though no longer painful.  Panic lurched—that Megatron might be repulsed by what he saw…

“What happened?”

He did not want to think about this. Not now. Megatron’s hand clenched hard over his shoulder, still adorned with the black chevron. 

“MECH,” he said. “It was how they transferred the code.”

“They _what_?” 

Optimus looked away. “They didn’t know,” he said, and even to him it still sounded as if he were trying to convince himself. “They didn’t know what they did.”

“I will destroy them regardless,” said Megatron. He took Optimus’s chin in one hand and leaned his helm against Optimus’s, looking into his optics. “This will not happen again. To _anyone_.”

“No,” said Optimus. “It will not.” He tilted his helm sideways and kissed Megatron, strange human custom, somehow appropriate. He reached out for Megatron’s cable, ventilated hard when Megatron pressed a gentle claw against his port. Megatron stilled his hand with a touch and stroked over the edge of the port with the flat side of his claw, gently exploring. He looked up and watched Megatron’s face, strangely intent. There was a softness to the scarred mouth now. 

Megatron caught his gaze and leaned forward, caught Optimus’s mouth with his own in a clash of dentae. Optimus gasped into the kiss, feeling fingers around his own cable, stroking, bringing charge to the sensitive tip. He reached for Megatron’s cable again, felt Megatron stiffen as he pressed a finger to its tip, brought it up against his port. Both Megatron’s hands moved to his shoulders, clenching hard. 

He hesitated, the sensation too much like the dead Eradicon’s cable, but Megatron’s presence, ventilating heavily, carefully not moving, was as much a comfort as it had been that first time. He pressed it into place.

Megatron made a strangled sort of noise, but Optimus didn’t hear it, too lost already. It felt safe, he’d forgotten how safe it felt, the electric feeling of a living cable, the brush of another’s mind. 

A jolt of pleasure rocked through him, fingers on his own cable—how had Megatron had the presence of mind for that? And a shock as the circuit was completed. Megatron’s cable shifted in him, pressing deeper, and he let out a sound that was almost a binary whine, clinging to Megatron’s shoulders to maintain something of a grip on the world. He heard Megatron chuckle, and the cable shifted again and again, sending waves of sensation through the newly healed sensors. And all the while, the rush of other input from both cable and port, Megatron’s pleasure and his own reflected. 

Megatron gasped, chuckled low, the amusement washing through their link, and something else, a sort of relief, something akin to happiness. He pushed back with his own mind and the tangle of relief/comfort/pleasure, and dimly felt the touch of a protective hand over the back of his helm. 

Then another touch, an invitation, the sense that Megatron held himself back for his sake, allowing him to decide when Megatron might release him into overload. Not the first time Megatron had done this for a victim of slave programming, he suspected, and clung to the small measure of control, hesitating until that claw trembled over his helm. Then he pressed forward, inviting, and Megatron met him with a roar more mental than physical. 

He overloaded. 

 

 ----

“All this time,” said Megatron, amused, “and you interfaced with no one else?”

“It wasn’t practical,” said Optimus, and pressed himself more closely against Megatron’s side, putting a possessive hand over his leg. “I had no wish to give the appearance of favoritism.”

“Hm. If this arrangement is to work, we have much to do.”

Optimus had no objection to that. 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [If We Cut Them](https://archiveofourown.org/works/994230) by [LeggyStarscream](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeggyStarscream/pseuds/LeggyStarscream)




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